Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing so-called Volunteer Visas. Now these are generally speaking O Visas that are issued for those who are working in sort of nonprofits sometimes, on various volunteer projects. 

The reason for the video is I have noticed a lot of people talking about these more and more lately. You need to be really careful with these Visas. I have seen a lot of frankly horror stories associated with folks who pretty innocuously got involved with trying to get a Volunteer Visa; basically tried to get a visa to keep them here in Thailand and they ended up getting burned pretty badly by it. Sometimes it may be just outright fraud. There was one set of circumstances where there seemed to be sort of an illicit ring of Immigration Officers who were issuing these inappropriately and that had a problem. I never got the full story associated with it, it was all sort of rumour and conjecture but none of what I heard was particularly good. We dealt with some clients who essentially were trying to get such things and the agents they went to never produced them and not only that took their passports and never returned them. We ended up having to rectify their situation. Not only did we have to get their visa issues resolved, but we had to get them new passports which proved to be a rather nettlesome endeavour to say the least.

So the thing to understand, it may be possible and I would say view it as possible under limited circumstances where you are going to be able to get a Volunteer Visa to maintain status here in Thailand and you are going to want to be dealing with a reputable organization, this is not an expedience. And understand, Thai officials, policy makers and the folks in the Thai Immigration Police Department take Visa fraud very seriously now and where we have seen the most of it has frankly been in the Volunteer Visa category as well as the Education Visa category. So something to keep in mind for those who are looking to stay in Thailand, be very, very cautious when dealing with the Volunteer Visa.